


meet me

by motherherbivore (Airheart)



Category: Warframe
Genre: Age Difference, Alley Sex, Awkwardness, Cybernetics, Established Relationship, Friends With Benefits, Spoilers, Trans Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-21
Updated: 2018-12-21
Packaged: 2019-09-05 08:37:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,020
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16807195
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Airheart/pseuds/motherherbivore
Summary: They have an arrangement.





	meet me

**Author's Note:**

> big fortuna pt 2 spoilers (if you haven't heard ticker's mem fragments yet, you can [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7bHQttROabc))

Ticker came to see him around mid-morning, after the first wave of Tenno had come and gone, early-starters eager to get to work on the Vallis. A few of them lingered, but they were working on kitguns or K-drives, and the Business had more than enough time to see to some of his patients. He was cleaning a partially-healed gash on the leg of a Delicate pobber when Ticker ambled down from her shop to his.

“Hope I’m not interrupting anything,” she said. The Business shook his head.

“Of course not. Just some routine care,” he said. “Look at this—she’s been here a day, and she’s already in the last stages of healing. An hour with an Oberon really works miracles on these animals.” He stroked the pobber’s head gently. It was not comforted, and tried to bite his finger.

“Cute,” Ticker mused. Then, “Got time for a quickie, Busy? It’s been a while.”

It had been a while, indeed—they'd both been so preoccupied since the Tenno came. It took a moment for the Business to wrap his head around the idea again. He carefully tightened his grip on the pobber as it tried to wriggle out of his hands. 

“Once I finish with our little friend here,” he said, fishing a roll of gauze out of his kit. “Shouldn’t be long.”

“Okay, darling. Will you need a stiffer?” 

The Business thought for a moment, then shook his head. “Not if you don’t mind taking the extra few minutes to do it by hand.”

“I don’t mind.” Ticker paused to let a virmink sniff her hand, but it didn’t want to be petted. She straightened up and put her hands in her pockets. “Ten minutes?”

“Make it fifteen,” said the Business, as the pobber squirmed and bit at the bandage he was trying to put on its leg, tearing the gauze. 

“Maintenance corridor seven,” Ticker said, and walked away. The Business watched her go, then slowly returned his attention to the pobber.

They’d had the arrangement for years, ever since her husband had come back from the shelves a stranger. The Taxmen had already dissolved the marriage—official records showed them as divorced. Ticker never signed anything, never even knew about it until two years after the fact. It didn’t matter, she’d said. Wouldn’t help anything to argue.

He'd known her before the repo, donated more than his fair share of food and parts to her afterwards. It was Solaris tradition for neighbors and friends to take care of a full-repo's family for the first week, but the Business kept on giving long after that week had passed. Ticker started asking him to stay and talk for a while when he made his deliveries, and they were friends then. As the years went on, he stayed later and later, and sometimes, something would come of those late nights. They'd stop when Ticker had a relationship, but things would inevitably resume between them when a new love ended.

“Doesn't it bother you that you're just her rebound man?” Little Duck asked once. 

“Ticker is a dear friend,” the Business replied. “I'm glad to be there for her.” Privately, he thought he was too old for her to take seriously, too damaged by a past he couldn't tell her about. He was perfectly content with a steady friendship and the occasional nighttime visit or operating-hours tryst in an empty maintenance corridor. 

Corridor 7 was the least used—nothing important was rooted there, and there were better shortcuts in most of the even-numbered corridors. The Business slipped in unnoticed.

Ticker was sitting on a crate, rig already off and resting next to her, all its cables and tubes unraveled to give her a longer range of motion. Her gloves were off, too, and she had one hand down the front of her pants, idly palming her cock through her thermals as the Business approached. He slowed his pace, just to watch her for a moment—the languid lines of her body, the minute flexes of her arms as she moved. She was utterly relaxed, patiently waiting. Peaceful in a way he hadn’t had the privilege of seeing her in a long time.

She stopped touching herself and stood up when the Business got close enough. “How’s that little pobber?” she asked, reaching for the apron of his rig. 

“Sedated, while the medigel works,” said the Business. He disconnected the apron, and Ticker set it aside for him while he undid his belt buckle. He couldn’t remove his entire head-box like she could, so that piece stayed on. “It's a good sign that she's so lively. I’ll release her with the next batch in a few cycles.”

“That’s good,” Ticker said, a little absentmindedly. She pressed herself to him, her groin against his hip, one hand on the small of his back and the other slipping past his belt. The first brush of her fingers against his cock made him tense and tingly at the same time, and for a split second, he wished he had taken the stiffer. But she knew exactly what to do, and made short work of it, rubbing herself against him all the while until they were both nearly peaked. 

Then she stepped back, handed him a foil packet of lubricant from her pocket, and leaned over her rig, one forearm braced against the wall. With the other hand she pushed her pants and thermals down her thighs, until the metal seams above her knees were just visible.

“No protection?” the Business asked, as he shoved his pants down to his knees. He kneaded the packet of lubricant between his fingers to warm it a little.

“Forgot it in my other pants’ pockets,” said Ticker. “Just pull out, if you can. I don’t care if you can’t. Worse things have happened.”

“I’ll pull out,” said the Business. 

Belatedly, he wondered if he should have done more to prepare her, but with the lubricant he slid in easily, and Ticker gave her cock a long, slow stroke. 

“There we go,” she sighed. “Good man.”

“Been having some late nights recently?” the Business asked, his thighs nearly flush against hers before he drew back again.

“Early mornings,” said Ticker. “For the past week. Like my organics suddenly realized how long it’s been since I got any good action. Just been so—” Her breath hitched a little as he thrusted more sharply— “ _ Busy.” _

He liked how she said it. He liked how she sounded, and how she moved, he could see the muscles in her biceps flexing and sliding. They weren’t originals, and she barely managed to keep up with the payments, but they were still organic, and so little of her was still organic that she worked like hell to keep the parts that were. 

The Business mentally shook himself, trying not to let his thoughts wander too far. He gripped Ticker’s hips, digging his fingers lightly into her skin. Her flesh was synthetically soft, just a little gel-like since she’d gotten it so long ago, before the more natural stuff was affordable. She’d exhausted most of her credits at that point anyway, and for what…

_ Alright now, old boy,  _ the Business scolded himself.  _ That’s enough of that.  _

He couldn’t help it. The pleasure of Ticker warm around him faded in and out of the background of his thoughts, thoughts of days past and days to come. Everyone was waiting for Solaris United to move again, but it was hard to follow such a grand revival. Every meeting brought back old memories. Eudico was struggling. The Business worried that too much hope was spreading.

He must have angled himself in a good way then, because Ticker groaned, disrupting his thoughts and bringing him back to the present. Her free hand clenced into a fist and she worked her cock a little faster, loose cables swaying with the motion. Her shirt rode up a little, showing more of her pale skin, and a little bit of the black tattoos on her back. The Business couldn’t resist—he slid his hand up her side, over the warm metal of her cable-ports, over her scars… neat, little lines from Corpus mod surgeries, a ropy keloid where Solaris medics had to fix those mods. There was a patch of burn-roughness from her days on the Vallis. 

“Don’t touch that, Busy,” Ticker said. The Business withdrew his hand, putting it back on the crest of her hip. 

“Apologies,” he said. Ticker pulled her shirt up farther, exposing her back almost up to her shoulders, so that the Business could see the whole of it. 

“You know I don’t mind you looking, darling,” she said, “just don’t touch that one, right?”

Her shoulder blades moved smoothly under her skin as she adjusted her position, and the Business slowed his hips, watching.

“Right,” he said. “I’m sorry, I don’t realize what I’m doing til I’ve done it."

“S’fine.” Ticker pushed her hips back against him, trying to get some certain angle. “A little faster, would you? I’m getting close—that’s a good man.” 

She came quietly, tense and then loose under his hands, her own hand stuttering as she spilled over. The Business stopped moving, then slowly withdrew. Ticker straightened up with another groan.

“Give me just a minute,” she said. She fished a few napkins out of her pockets, and handed the Business two before she set to cleaning herself off, and he wiped the excess lubricant off his cock. The friction didn’t really excite him. Come to think of it, he didn’t feel anywhere close to climax, but he brushed it off. He promised himself he’d pay more attention now.

Ticker pulled her pants back up, snapped the waistband against her hip, then sat down on the crate again and pulled the Business towards her. 

He kept waiting for something to happen, for the pleasure to spike out of its plateau and work its way to orgasm, but it just… didn’t. Ticker’s lights blinked silently a few times, but she kept at it. The Business tried to focus, and still nothing. 

After ten minutes, the Business gave up. He put a hand on Ticker’s wrist and gently pushed her away. 

“Nevermind,” he said. Ticker just stood there for a moment, then wiped her hand on her shirt as the Business pulled his pants back up. 

It was quiet for a few minutes while they straightened their clothes and reconnected their rigs. The Business helped Ticker heft her rig back into place and lock the closures, and Ticker held the apron of the Business’s rig while he reattached all the cables and screwed the port connectors back. He still couldn’t afford to upgrade to one of the newer, more compact rig models. No one could. 

“Thanks for the favor, Busy,” Ticker said then. She stroked his arm, trailing her fingers down to squeeze his hand. “Sorry I couldn’t do it for you.”

“It’s alright, not your fault. Better than not being able to get it up at all, isn’t it?” The Business readjusted his cables and double-checked the latch on his head-box. His disinterested cock was already soft, like nothing had happened. He didn’t have the energy to feel embarrassed about it. “At least then we didn’t have to stop before we began.” 

“Are you feeling okay, though?”

“I’m just fine, Ticker. Don’t worry about me.”

Ticker’s lights blinked, but the Business didn’t hear anything. Then she patted her pockets absentmindedly and said, “Wish I had time for a cigarette. Anyway, you come have supper with me and the old man tonight, yeah darling?”

“I’ll try,” said the Business. “I’ve got nine Tenno on the Vallis today—no way of knowing what they’ll bring me.”

“Fair enough,” said Ticker. “Well, either way, think I could come and keep you company again tonight?”

“You're always welcome in my hab.”

She gave his head-box an affectionate pat, then gathered up the napkins they'd used, and left. The Business stayed there for a few minutes longer before he slipped out of the corridor and went back to work.  
  



End file.
